Early Praise for I Will leave You Never:
“Readers are treated to a poignant story of human growth amid catastrophes. An often moving story of uncertainty and loss.” —Kirkus Reviews
Ann Putnam’s glorious I Will Leave You Never is a story of threat and survival and the ties of love that bind us to one another. This novel resonates with the fragile and yet persistent threads of our living, threads that will vibrate inside you for a long time to come.” —Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer finalist The Bright Forever
“Ann Putnam is the kind of extraordinary writer who captures heartbreak and longing with such startling precision and in such beautiful prose that you cannot help but be moved. Zoe and Jay, this family, will live in my memory for years to come.” —Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times best-selling author of Wench, Balm and Take My Hand
“Ann Putnam’s I Will Leave You Never is a heartbreaking, gracefully rendered story of the quiet moments between and around the devastating ones and of the beautiful inner workings of the heart and minds battling their way along life’s toughest roads.” —Laurie Frankel, New York Times best-selling author of This is How It Always Is and One Two Three
“Ann Putnam’s ironically titled I Will Leave You Never is a novel full of leave-takings that even Zoe—the appointed family worrier—could not anticipate over the course of a year that will strain but not break the bonds of her loving family.” —Ladette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares and author of Pushcart Prize winner Private Way
“Exquisitely written, this luminous novel takes you to the deep heart of a marriage. Threatened by illness and arson, a family with three children and too many puppies ultimately finds the strength to go forward with wit and insight.” —Beverly Conner, author of Where Light is a Place, Falling From Grace
“Ominous and original, Ann Putnam’s novel is characteristically lyrical and precise. It is at its heart a love story, where characters facing loss uncover the generative quality of love.” —Beth Kalikoff, author of Dying for a Blue Plate Special
“It’s no surprise that Ann Putnam’s most recent novel, I Will Leave You Never, features compelling characters in Zoe and Jay (among others) and lush, vivid writing. Fans of her short stories and her novel Cuban Quartermoon will, like me, rejoice that a new novel has appeared.” —Hans Ostrom, author of Honoring Juanita
Praise for the Cuban Quartermoon:
“A story with sumptuous description and a gradually intensifying plot that makes for compulsive reading.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review).
To read the review in its entirety, visit https://www.kirkusreviews.com/…/ann…/cuban-quartermoon/
“The Protagonist of this evocative and gripping novel, a Hemingway scholar, has joined with a special group of scholars who will explore, for one intensive week, the complex and seductive terrain of Hemingway’s Cuban landscape. Her journey into this heart of darkness increasingly ignites her own confrontation with a troubled past even as it illuminates the subtle but no less terrifying realities of Cuba amidst its own crisis of identity. The lush imagery and cutting edge prose of this narrative masterpiece makes for a compelling and transformative read.”
—Linda Patterson Miller, PhD, author of Letters from the Lost Generation
“Hemingway called Cuba “that long, beautiful, unhappy island.” In her rich and evocative novel, Ann Putnam renders the beauty, lure, strangeness, and intrigue of the island in sensuous detail through the eyes of a North American woman on a personal journey toward restoration and redemption.”
—Sandra Spanier, PhD, Edwin Erle Spark Professor of English, Penn State University
“Narrated with haunting poetic language, Cuban Quartermoon transports its readers to the luscious landscapes, ethereal light, and the complicated politics of Cuba in the 90’s. The story of an American woman with a tragic past, traveling to Havana for the first time, is delicately rendered and imbued with subtle Santeria spirituality as a healing of the soul. In this magical novel, Ann Putnam masterly takes us to a world of contradictions, loss and longing, where the main character confronts the haunting ghosts of her past to finally find absolution, renewal and hope. A must read.”
— Loly Alcaide Ramirez , PhD, University of Washington, Tacoma
Praise for the Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye:
“From the beginning, Full Moon at Noontide seduced me. Then it sliced me open, slapped me in the face, made me cry, and enlarged my spirit. We stay with the story because it is beautifully written, because it is ultimately our story as well, and because [she] shows us that love—not—death can have the last word.”
—Thomas R. Cole, PhD author of The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging
“…the metaphors and rhythms of story and poetry are necessary to pull back the curtain on this numinous other world for us. Full Moon at Noontide is such a story.”
—David Hilfiker, M.D.
“Ann Putnam’s memoir, Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye is poignant, thoughtful and beautifully written.”
—The Spokesman Review
“Her tender, beautifully-written observation of old age, infirmity and death—of ‘loss upon loss’—is not nearly as frightening as you might think. It is a wise and loving affirmation of life lived to the very end.”
—The Seattle Times
“[Ann Putnam’s memoir] delivers a story both profoundly painful and somehow life-affirming, lifted into literature by her sharp intelligence and luminous writing.”
—Nancy Lord, Journal of Western American Literature
“Ann Putnam has given us a story of love and loss and survival that moves and instructs . . . This is truly a work of love and devotion. A gift.”
—Annick Smith, co-producer of A RIVER RUNS THROUGHT IT
“This is a hard book because Ann Putnam had the courage to tell us the truth about aging and dying. But it’s a gorgeous book, too, one born from the endurance of the human spirit and the capacity to love.”
—Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever, Pulitzer Prize Finalist (River of Heaven)
“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”
—Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award for Middle Passage
“Anyone can suffer; only an artist can turn suffering into something beautiful and universal. If there’s a survivor’s guide to easing the transitions necessary with aging parents, this is it.”
—Ladette Randolph, editor of Ploughshares
“This memoir is heart-rending and heart-warming, as Ann Putnam describes the deaths of her beloved father and his identical twin, her much-loved uncle. Putnam translates these losses into an inspiring and poignant family story that is also the tale of every family facing the inevitable.”
—Nina Baym, editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature
“Putnam writes with sensitivity about losing a loved one, an experience that is both personal and common to us all.”
—Katie Schneider, The Oregonian (read the entire review here)